"When you only have two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other."-Chinese proverb. "Arts a staple. Like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter. Those who think it is a luxury have only a fragment of a mind. Mans spirit grows hungry for art in the same way h

The new streetlights on 6th Street downtown are much better than the acorns. However, the light bulbs are waaayyy too bright!

Fortunately, the fixtures cut off the glare pretty well. But when you walk or drive under them, you feel like you've just put your face on the glass of a Xerox machine and pressed "print."

Similarly, the "landscaping" lights on the new Centennial Green Park are blinding to pedestrians. They have lights on the stairs that are so bright they hurt! ("I didn't ask for the laser eye surgery...")

So...a great effort with cool new fixtures. Now, all we need are the appropriate bulbs!

I emailed Councilor Gomez, expressing my pleasure with the new lighting fixtures. Is there anyone else that I should message to ensure that these and even better lighting solutions are implemented in the future?

The new streetlights on 6th Street downtown are much better than the acorns. However, the light bulbs are waaayyy too bright!

Any informed lighting designer knows you reduce wattage when using Full-Cutoff fixtures, not increase them.The reason being that the Full-Cutoff is more efficient and puts all the light on the ground instead of into your face or up in space. By not reducing lamp sizes you pool too much light under the fixtures, your uniformity goes to hell and they eye is less able to adapt from bright to dark. That makes it harder to see into shadows, and the street less safe.

Maybe someone's way of proving you can have bad lighting even with shielded lights if you try hard enough?

We did the same thing with the jogging trail, by lighting areas several times over the recommended levels set by ANSI and the IES (Iluminating Engineering Society).

What are they thinking?...and why dont we have any input in these plans?

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"Tulsa will lay off police and firemen before we will cut back on unnecessarily wasteful streetlights." -- March 18, 2009 TulsaNow Forum

Just read the National Geographic article about the effects of bad lighting.

So Tulsa's bad lighting not only costs more, wastes energy, blinds people with glare, and eliminates our ability to see the stars... it also wrecks havoc with wildlife, migratory patterns, and may increase the risk of breast cancer in humans.

Just read the National Geographic article about the effects of bad lighting.

So Tulsa's bad lighting not only costs more, wastes energy, blinds people with glare, and eliminates our ability to see the stars... it also wrecks havoc with wildlife, migratory patterns, and may increase the risk of breast cancer in humans.

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzleYou want change made to downtown lighting? You need to talk to Crowley. Most of the big foundations listen to him and he is very pro-green development. The same foundations doing the development on riverparks with the much-improved lighting.

Since the Riverparks makeover lighting ignored so many rules of good lighting design, I have to disagree that simply changing a fixture style alone actually constitutes "improved". If anything, the implementation of the jogging trail lighting was done in such a way as to possibly dissuade their use by future designers.

Aside from cutting glare, Cutoff and Full-cutoff lighting fixtures focus their output downward at angles more useful to human vision. By not wasting light skyward, less light needs to be generated by the fixture to do the job. That means you must reduce the wattage, or excess light pools under each fixture.

If you allow light to pool under fixtures, you not only waste electricity but your eye has a harder time trying to adapt between lit and unlit areas. That decreases your safety by making you less able to detect threats.

So why did we over-lamp the Riverparks fixtures in the first place?

Each municipal light fixture (streetlight, etc) maintained by the city must burn a minimum of 100 watts of electricity, according to Public Works.It's not a rule that has an actual relationship to how well the streets are lit, but rather how much electricity the city agrees to buy from PSO.

As far as how to properly light streets to benefit human vision, improve safety and promote nighttime utilization of public spaces, it's an outdated rule and needs to go.

For the jogging trail, that means they could have used half the electricity and ended up with much better lighting. Given the human eye's higher sensitivity to blue-white light (Scotopic vision) we could have even used a third of the light used now, and improved visibility.At those levels, we could have even used LED's or Compact Fluorescent, had better light, and saved money.

But we have to burn 100-watts per fixture instead...And the rates just go up every couple of months.

The barriers to better streetlights are not technical, but political.Not letting our policy makers know we understand that is why we continue to loose city services like trash pickup and summertime pools everytime a new "Acorn" light adorns a downtown sidewalk.

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"Tulsa will lay off police and firemen before we will cut back on unnecessarily wasteful streetlights." -- March 18, 2009 TulsaNow Forum

I have to admit Patric, I've only casually followed your posts over the years, because to be honest I'm not that "naturally" interested in your favorite topic. However, I'm starting to pick up some passion for this stuff. Everywhere I drive now, I look at lighting and am appalled at how much pollution is being generated by businesses who simply look for the cheapest, legal lighting source available to them.

The City of Tulsa is a different story however. Refusal to acknowledge the facts about lighting makes me more than a little upset, considering that it's our tax money.

I'm curious...who have you spoken with in the current administration about lighting regulations for the City of Tulsa and before that, regulations and standards for city owned property and projects?

I'm curious...who have you spoken with in the current administration about lighting regulations for the City of Tulsa and before that, regulations and standards for city owned property and projects?

Current administration -- spoke with a Taylor aide when I answered the call for volunteeres for city boards, have either spoken or corresponded with most sitting Councilors at one time or another (Dist. 4 Councilor Gomez was with us in the Renaissance Neighborhood association at the time we were actively pursuing dialog with the city on nuisance lighting). Not met with Bynum but his predecessor Neal had promised to look into changing the City's franchise arrangement with PSO to allow more energy efficient fixtures. Didnt.Was a finalist in LaFortune's "Mayor's Competition for Better Government" and submitted a 62-page analysis on correcting wasteful municipal lighting in 2003. Except for changing traffic signals to LED, it was mostly ignored, and our spending on just the electricity for streetlights doubled between 2003 and 2006 (mostly due to the conversion to energy-wasting "Acorn" streetlights)

Regulations and standards for city owned property and projects come from the Public Works department, who, lacking expertise on the subject, call on the "experts" at the electric utility to "recommend" what the city should require them to use.

« Last Edit: January 02, 2009, 12:05:17 pm by patric »

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"Tulsa will lay off police and firemen before we will cut back on unnecessarily wasteful streetlights." -- March 18, 2009 TulsaNow Forum

I'm curious...who have you spoken with in the current administration about lighting regulations for the City of Tulsa and before that, regulations and standards for city owned property and projects?

Current administration -- spoke with a Taylor aide when I answered the call for volunteeres for city boards, have either spoken or corresponded with most sitting Councilors at one time or another (Dist. 4 Councilor Gomez was with us in the Renaissance Neighborhood association at the time we were actively pursuing dialog with the city on nuisance lighting). Not met with Bynum but his predecessor Neal had promised to look into changing the City's franchise arrangement with PSO to allow more energy efficient fixtures. Didnt.Was a finalist in LaFortune's "Mayor's Competition for Better Government" and submitted a 62-page analysis on correcting wasteful municipal lighting in 2003. Except for changing traffic signals to LED, it was mostly ignored, and our spending on just the electricity for streetlights doubled between 2003 and 2006 (mostly due to the conversion to energy-wasting "Acorn" streetlights)

Regulations and standards for city owned property and projects come from the Public Works department, who, lacking expertise on the subject, call on the "experts" at the electric utility to "recommend" what the city should require them to use.

Wow. It sounds like you're trying to get involved but the way our political system is structured, things don't always move in the right direction. And certainly they don't move quickly. Disappointed to know that your 62 page analysis was so blatantly disregarded. Was there any feedback on that report directly from the Mayor's office?

As far as public works goes, who is the director over there and why wouldn't he/she be interested in more efficient and subsequently more ENERGY efficient lighting for city projects? Short of some tacky 80's style kickbacks that may or may not be happening, I can't see why COT Public Works would feel the need to cut their nose off to spite their face. Long term savings in real dollars means more money for their department on a variety of other projects.

Perhaps this is an issue for the Mayor's "Green Team." Aferall, bad lighting affects the environment so many ways, it seems like a no-brainer to make simple changes that would have a huge impact on the environment, energy useage, and Tulsa's bottom line.

While I believe the best way to salvage our existing investment in "Acorn" decorative streetlights is to convert them to lower-intensity, and instead illuminate the street with something more effective, there <i>are</i> "period"-style fixtures capable of properly lighting streets without glare.

One of the first I saw on a large scale was installed in the historic district of Atoka, of all places. They are using the clear-glass version of this fixture.

Since then most major lighting manufacturers have come up with something comparable, so Im not favoring any particular make (just the method).

Tulsa should require, by ordinance, that street lights purchased or maintained with public finds meet minimum efficiency standards, and that any streetlight be warranted by demonstrating that such installation is needed to (and actually will) benefit nighttime vision.

These are presently not the goals of our streetlighting system, but should be.

« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 08:38:53 pm by patric »

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"Tulsa will lay off police and firemen before we will cut back on unnecessarily wasteful streetlights." -- March 18, 2009 TulsaNow Forum

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